This week, 16 young people gathered at the Old Manassas Courthouse to be awarded scholarships as part of the Beat the Odds program. We would like to congratulate all of them for their achievement.
The program gives scholarships and other awards to teens who have had some kind of contact with the juvenile court system and yet managed to turn their lives around.
This program has been around since 2001, when three teens received $1,000 in scholarships. But 70 students have been given more than $200,000 in scholarships and awards since then.
Yaileen Rodriguez, a scholarship recipient and senior at Gar-Field High School, will go to Northern Virginia Community College next year.
Courtney Blaydes, a senior at Osbourn High School, won a Phoenix award last year as part of the Beat the Odds program. The Phoenix award goes to younger students. This year’s award winners
received laptops.
Change is probably one of the most difficult things that human beings have to endure. Unfortunately, it is also the only thing that is permanent. Being creatures of habit, we relish patterns of behavior,
often with detrimental results.
The youth being recognized by the Beat the Odds program are stopping the patterns in their lives that threaten to hold them back. They are using their God-given free will to turn the role of fate to their
advantage and bring success into their lives. For this they should be commended.
And the Prince William County Bar Foundation deserves our thanks for taking the time, effort and money to single out those teenagers among us who change our view about what to expect from our
troubled youth.
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